Reflection

This project is probably the most interesting project I have done so far in the IDES course. Designing for a real life situation really did make me feel that if I don't do enough research, then there would be absolutely no way in coming up with a feasible concept.

During the initial stages of researching and understanding the problems in Haiti, I became too emotionally attached to the recounts and news articles about all the death and chaos in Haiti after floods/mudslides. I even came across a video of dead infants being piled up with their bodies still soaking wet.  An image of a father putting his daughter's lifeless corpse into a bag, his facial expression was just too much.  At that point, I just wanted to design a solution that could ultimately change Haiti for good. However what I found out through consultations with my tutor, feedback from other classmates and through my own research, there are just so many external factors that I can't change. For example, I can't change the corrupted government and police, I can't stop people from hurting or killing one another, nor can I change the Haitian's culture and attitudes.

Once I knew what concept to stay with, I had to refine the product. I enjoyed this part of the project and I learnt many things during this stage. From consulting with Alicia, she explained that the design of my draft concept didn't need all those extra holes on my flood level detector (refer to Concept Development images). So there were many "Oh!" situations. Also Haiti is a very poor country, so it is very crucial to remove unnecessary materials and components and only use minimum manufacturing processes to reduce the cost of my mass produced products so it can be cheaply available to the market.

If I was to do this project again, I would probably keep refining my same product to its simplest form. I believe that everything can be simplified. Just like what Apple did to conventional ’brick-looking' gadgets. Right now, I am happy with my concept, but form and function wise, not that satisfied with the final design, I still think more can be done. Overall for design students and designers designing any product, you REALLY need to do EXTENSIVE RESEARCH and REFINE THE PRODUCT as best as possible.